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Windows 7 OS and video memory requirements

Without listening to all these Google answers that I have researched what is a good requirement for video memory on my computer for Windows 7?

This is what my video adapter says right now.

Total available graphics memory: 256MB - (why does this say graphics?)
Dedicated video memory: 0MB - (and this says video memory?)
System video memory: 64MB - (is this the actual memory on the built in card/chip?)
Shared system memory: 192MB - (I have 4 GB of memory so this is what's taken from the 4GB?)

Note: I thought that dedicated video memory was built onto the video card itself.

I downloaded CPU-Z and it says that my graphic memory is 384MB. This can't be what's built into the video card.

I ran dxdiag and it says 256 MB.

Last edited by jonny b; March 15th, 2014 at 07:23 PM.
Reason: Add to post

There's nothing you can do about it, other than to use a video card with more RAM (if possible).

I haven't found a website talking about video memory with Windows 7 whether it is shared. What do others think about dedicated video memory with Win 7? Can it just be shared and it does not matter if it has zero dedicated memory?

No matter dedicated or integrated, Windows OS see them equally.
Just the performance will be different.

Dedicated video RAM is genenrally faster for video display.
The integrated video RAM are taking from the system addon RAMs, so this share the system RAM resoruces and cause the system RAM to dropped and hence lower on the performance.

This is really depends on the mobo design.
If we need a faster perofmance system, I would suggest install the extra dedicated video card to the computer.

Someone in the Chrome discussions says to take the checkmark out of hardware acceleration in Settings. These Dells that I have has no adjustment for video ram in the bios either. Anyhow see what happens.

Video hardware requirements could vary depending on which version of Win 7 you are using. Win 7 Enterprise, for example, would be less than Pro.

Do you think that it does not matter if it's dedicated or shared from the system? When I see that my dedicated video memory is zero then I want to go look for an add-in video card to put into a unit. But if it does not matter that it's shared then I won't worry about it.